


All the Miles to Babylon

by Megkips



Category: Fate/Zero
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 07:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11709468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megkips/pseuds/Megkips
Summary: Rider has met Archer once, back when Rider was Iskandar and Archer was just a story to be told.





	All the Miles to Babylon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soshi185](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soshi185/gifts).



The inhabitants of Babylon were not to have their homes invaded when the city was taken. That had been Iskandar’s decree after the fight at Gaugamela. It had been done as instructed, and now, in the palace of Babylon, he could plan the next part of this matter. For all of his knowledge, Darius was still alive and on the run, and the man would pick their next battlefield as well.

Iskandar rumbled lowly at the thought. The terrain of the land further east was all mountains, a problem in and of itself, but if Darius found the right spot, well! It would make for an even more exciting battle, and that was something to look forward to. 

All of these thoughts swirled in Iskandar’s head as he walked through the palace corridors, a portion of his mind noting the decorations attached to the walls. Mosaics of bright and gleaming lapis lazuli, bas reliefs of strange gods who he did not know, vases by artists whose names he would never know depicting even stranger mythological beasts. It was a glorious thing to behold, the style wholly apart from the Greeks. Beside him walked Hephaestion, refusing to sit after taking injury on the battlefield of Gaugamela. An arm injury, coming from an enemy spear. Doing anything short of sitting and resting was something Hephaestion would chide Iskandar for in a heartbeat, but Iskandar’s attempts to return the favor had been met with cold glares and insistence that it was nothing at all. So examining the palace of Babylon together it had been. Low enough impact to not aggravate the injury, but also not sitting around with no accomplishments for the day either.

“Iskandar,” Hephaestion’s voice said, after they seemingly walked every corridor in companionable silence. How long had it been? Two hours? Three? “It’s nearly sunset. I think that we are supposed to attend a feast in a few moments’ time.”

Iskandar looked out towards the nearest window. Babylon’s skyline was dotted with their temples, their ziggurats, composed of neatly stacked squares that tried to reach the heavens. A pale pink glow settled over them, the threat of dark purple beginning to overtake them.

He let out a low laugh, offering Hephaestion a grin. “Yes. We’re dressed well enough that we don’t need to change either. How’s your arm feeling?”

“Well enough,” was the response, quick to avoid any lingering discussion on the matter. “We ought to get going then.”

It was a short walk to the hall where the feast was held. Within the great room were further mosaics, studded with even more precious gems. Men were shown in fights with beasts who were fearsome indeed, and doors were both supported and guarded by stone carvings who boasted the faces of men, the wings of eagles, and the bodies of bulls. Lamassu they were called. Or shedu. He had heard both used.

Couches lined the room, an immediate adaptation of the ways of home. Many of Iskandar’s generals were already perched on their couches - long haired Eumenes, triumphant Ptolemy and the fair Thaïs beside him, strong jawed Leonnatus, Perdiccas, Craterus, Peithon, and so many of the others who made up the ranks. There were only two that remained: the one in the dead center of the room, and the one to that sofa’s immediate right. Iskandar and Hephaestion moved immediately to their respective seats, and then the night began in earnest.

It began in the way Iskandar expected: sacrifices to the gods of Babylon and his own. A wise gesture, built for politics, and in truth, not something Iskandar was interested in at the moment. Politics were for the morning, when Babylon would fully need to adjust to a new king. This evening was a moment’s reprieve from all of the work that had been accomplished and all of the work that was to be done.

Music followed, with some instruments familiar, like the gold not-a-lyre that was played by a beautiful girl no older than ten, and some strange, such as the odd reed instrument the eight-year-old boy beside her played. They were genuinely excellent, but it was clear in their faces that this performance unnerved them. Iskandar ensured his applause was the loudest of them all once they had finished. Being two cups into the wine helped as well, even if such quick drinking brought upon Hephaestion’s disapproving stare. Dancers came on, one group after another, and as they did so, all manner of food was brought out. Fine roasts of animals great and small, cured olives, crisp flat breads designed to be piled high with cold meats, and an endless list of things no one could identify, but found satisfying all the same. At times there was no entertainment at all, allowing for good conversation among friends, and the usual drunken arguments that always came with the group.

“How’s your arm holding up?” Iskandar asked while another dance went on in front of them. His voice was low.

“Managing, but it’d be nice to not be reclining and holding it in this position,” Hephaestion whispered back. “Any idea when this’ll be over?”

Iskandar shook his head no. “Leave after the next course. I’ll depart soon after.”

“Very well. You’ve been informed of tomorrow’s agenda?”

“Yes. I have a few que-- oh, they’re done. Hang on.” Iskandar cut himself off to applaud the six couples who just concluded an elaborate dance in honor of a god or goddess whose name didn’t spring to Iskandar’s mind, but probably appreciated the performance. As they walked off, they were replaced by a single young woman who entered the space in a simple green dress and equally plain braided hair.

 

By Iskandar’s guess, the woman could not have been more than twenty. She was a petite thing with black hair and dark green eyes. The color of her dress matched that eye color exactly, and what she lacked in size, she made up for in volume.

“Iskandar, Basileus of Macedon, Hegemon of the Hellenic League, Pharaoh of Egypt. Great generals, other companions of the king,” she began. Her voice was steady, steady in the way the poets who had all of Homer in their memory spoke. She had done this before. “In assembling this feast for you, we knew that you had seen some of our culture already. Our art, our clothes, our jewelry; all of that is plain as you have traveled through our lands. Our dances, less so, and even less obvious are our old histories. We had not heard of your Troy until recently. My job is to repay you the favor.”

Iskandar sat up slightly. 

“South of Babylon is the city of Uruk, beloved of the goddess Ishtar, she who reigns over love and beauty, sex and fertility, war and combat, and all of the attendant variations thereof. Surpassing all other kings of Uruk was Gilgamesh.”

And so the storyteller let the life of Gilgamesh unfold. She drove home his selfishness, praised the gods for the creation of Enkidu, and drove home how the bond between them both proved to be Uruk’s saving grace and their own undoing. It was, in Iskandar’s mind, remarkable that the outrage over a death was so familiar in the stories of another people who could have never heard the poetry of Homer, and yet there it was. His eyes met those of Hephaestion’s as Gilgamesh mourned, and the slightest nod meant that Hephaestion was also thinking of Achilles and Patroclus. 

When at last the story ended, the applause that followed seemed more genuine than that of given to the other pieces of entertainment so far. That Iskandar’s hands were the loudest of all did not go unnoticed, and days later, a box was gifted to him. 

The fine cedar wood and unfamiliar script on top opened to give way to a scroll. Written in Greek on the outside edge were four simple words.

_Surpassing all other kings._

Iskandar did not read further. He took it into his private rooms and placed it where it could be easily accessed. The luxury of poetry was no longer available to him now, not while he had to begin to pursue Darius in earnest, but he knew that such luxury would be his again soon.

***

Rider sat in front of the television, images of President Bill Clinton’s latest press conference playing. Behind him, curled up in bed and doing his best to snore, Rider’s master slept. The boy had passed out immediately after returning from the Fuyuki docks, and there as no doubt in Rider’s mind that the boy would rest until noon at the very earliest. Not needing sleep himself, Rider settled down to review the evening’s adventures.

Saber, Lancer, they had given their names. The mad black knight, well, the boy might have thoughts on the matter. But Archer, Archer was something else. He had the air of the most ancient kings, the kind whose faces might have been painted on the temples in Egypt, back when Rider was Iskandar and Iskandar was Pharaoh. Those rulers were said to be divine themselves, and that was the first clue as to who Archer really was. If not a god in the mythology of his people, he was on that level. He was no hero from Homer, but a king with some trace of the divine about him.

But an ancient, possibly divine king was still a painfully wide and open field. Iskandar let out a low, pensive rumble, trying to recall the stories of kings he met on his travels. They were almost universally arrogant in their stories at one point or another, only to be humbled by trials and tribulations.

That still didn’t narrow anything down.

Rider sighed, and let the matter go. President Clinton was talking about new military equipment. The right name would reveal itself in time.

***

They met in daylight hours by accident. Rider had been en route to what research informed him was the best-stocked wine shop in all of Fuyuki, and Archer had perched himself beside the Mion River. Their eyes met, and beyond the flicker of acknowledgement there was an unspoken agreement that here, in public, in the open, with so many eyes staring at them, they could do little more than talk.

Not that either seemed opposed. Archer remained sitting with his rear on the top of a park bench, feet where the seat was, and Rider found himself shaking his head at the position. Archer was the haughtiest king that he had ever encountered.

“This is the glory of the Independent Action of the Archer class, I take it?” Rider asked, his voice full of good cheer. That he was given a thin smile and no other confirmation was just fine. It felt perfectly aligned with what Rider knew of him.

“And your own wandering around would be due to--?” Archer responded, his head tilted ever so slightly. “I don’t see that boy you call Master trailing after you and complaining incessantly.”

“Ah, well,” Rider said, his version of a small shrug still a greater and grander gesture than most. “He’s resting, so I’m running an errand of my own.”

Archer’s face remained still, but his voice betrayed his curiosity. “Are you now? And what is it that you do that you, a so-called king, cannot have another do it?”

“If I am buying wine to share with Saber at the Einzbern home, then I believe that only I can select the correct vintage.”

There was that thin smile again, and in Archer’s unearthly eyes, a flash of intensity. He leaned in ever so slightly, and Rider read it easily. “I’d invite you as well, but I’m not sure if the furnishings there would be to your taste, Archer. We might all have the same plain chairs, or else none at all.”

It wasn’t a matter that would ever bother Rider, but Archer was a king whose ego surpassed all. There was a moment’s quiet as Archer made up his mind, and then he brought one hand up to gesture widely. His elbow rested atop his knee, and his chin rested in his hand.

“Normally, I would never lower myself to such conditions. But since it seems like this little gathering will be the replacement for any kind of a fight tonight, I shall accept your invitation, Rider. I can find the Einzbern castle with no problem, and I am sure your departure this evening will be perfectly subtle, as always.”

Rider laughed, a full deep laugh that came from the pit of his stomach and rippled outward. Archer’s face remained clearly unimpressed, finding no humor in a dry recitation of facts, and it was hammered home as he replied. “I expect you to prove your worth as a king in your wine selection.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Rider said in response, waving the concern off. Archer seemed unconvinced, and he drew himself upright again.

“I’d worry about the time then. I’m sure that that boy of yours cannot sleep forever, and he’ll have a great many pointless words on the topic. I will see you this evening.”

It did not escape Rider’s notice that Archer had treated the matter like a royal audience rather than a conversation. As he walked away from Archer, still feeling the intense red eyes on the back of his skull, Rider contemplated the person that Archer was in life. He was an old king, perhap more myth than reality. But in that field, there were many names, their resumes each more powerful and impressive than the last.

There was something in all of it that brushed against the familiar though. What it was though, Rider could not place.

***

In the pointless, good natured bickering over wine, over the Grail, over putting wine in the Grail, and over ownership of the whole situation, it clicked. The arrogance, the claiming of being the first, the origin of so many things, the refusal to be on level footing with seemingly everyone. He had met this king before. He had seen his country’s landscape, viewed his people’s art, and heard the stories told centuries after the one-third mortal part of him was gone. Rider reached for the wine again and refilled his cup, smiling to himself.

“I think I know your true name now,” he said Archer’s expression remained hard to read, but there was some indication of pleasure at being recognized. But there was no reason to dwell on such identities. So long as the two were clear on where they stood in relation to each other, well, then they could discuss the real matter at hand.


End file.
